Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Swine flu has now killed more than 700 people around the globe, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday, as experts debated whether schools should be closed to contain the pandemic.

Egypt was the latest country to warn vulnerable Muslims not to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, after a woman returning from Saudi Arabia became the first Egyptian to die from the A(H1N1) virus.

The United Nations also raised the prospect that the pandemic could hit countries undermined by poverty, conflicts or famine and trigger a "major" new crisis in those areas.

The WHO has warned that the pandemic is now unstoppable and its rapid spread since breaking out four months ago was highlighted when agency spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi told journalists the toll was now "over 700 deaths."

The previous toll published by the WHO on July 6 stood at 429 deaths.

With experts mulling how to limit the spread, Bhatiasevi said school closures could be considered.

"School closure is one of the mitigation measures that could be considered by countries," she told journalists.

"Different countries would be facing the pandemic at different levels at different times, so it is really up to countries to consider what mitigation measures would suit them."

Her comments came after a study in The Lancet medical journal said keeping schoolchildren at home could in some circumstances be effective against the spread of swine flu.

Countries in Europe and North America could be advised to take a look at their policies in the northern hemisphere autumn, it said.

"In an optimistic scenario, closure of schools during a pandemic might have some effect on the total number of cases (maybe a 15 percent reduction) but cause larger reductions (around 40 percent) in peak attack rates," it said.

"However, this reduction will be substantially undermined if children are not sufficiently isolated or if the policy is not well implemented."

It added that "the H1N1 pandemic could become more severe, and so the current cautious approach of not necessarily recommending school closure in Europe and North America might need reappraisal in the autumn."

Liam Donaldson, the professional head of all medical staff in England, reacted cooly to the suggestion, noting that it had not worked when tried locally.

Adding Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish figures, Britain is Europe's worst affected territory -- but Donaldson told GMTV: "I think it would take a lot for us to move in that direction."

He said: "It would be extremely disruptive to society. When would you open them again, given that flu might be around for several months?"

With upwards of two million people expected in Saudi Arabia over the next five months on pilgrimages to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Egypt advised vulnerable Muslims to stay home.

The health ministry "has warned the elderly, pregnant women, children and those suffering from chronic illness not to perform the hajj or omra pilgrimages," the official MENA news agency reported.

The warning came ahead of a meeting of Arab health ministers in Cairo on Wednesday to coordinate precautions to be taken during the pilgrimage season.

Egypt on Sunday reported its first death linked to swine flu after a 25-year-old woman returning from a Saudi pilgrimage died in hospital.

Separately, eight Kuwaitis have tested positive on their return from a pilgrimage to Mecca and have been admitted to hospital, the Kuwaiti health ministry announced.

Addressing the difficulties faced by poor countries, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes warned that many people already in need of aid were "crowded into camp situations and therefore particularly vulnerable" to the virus.

He added that the "wider concern" was that the virus could spread into conflict-torn or impoverished countries and affect them more severely than other areas.

"...Then we would have a major new humanitarian crisis on our hands," he said.

Content providers for mobile phones have agreed to withdraw their cases against the new guidelines of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) prohibiting them from sending unsolicited messages or spam to consumers.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile: "But I suggested, the good commissioner agreed that the content providers will be given a show cause notice, show cause why you should not be stopped from doing business… If they don't show cause, then they will be shut off, " referring to NTC commissioner Ruel Canobas.

In exchange for the withdrawal of the cases, Enrile said the NTC agreed to sit down with the content providers to discuss a possible revision of the guidelines to give them due process before imposing sanctions on them, such as disconnection of their services.

He said the content providers and the NTC would meet again on Wednesday to "smoothen out" the issue.

To address similar problems in the future, Enrile said Congress would also push a measure that would grant security of tenure for NTC commissioners and "enough powers" for the commission.

The helicopter was reported to be carrying three crew members and 17 passengers of varying nationalities. Sixteen of the passengers, including the Filipinos, were killed in the crash.

The company said the next of kin for each Filipino employee have been notified of the death of their family member. After positive identification is made of the bodies in Kandahar, these will be sent to Kuwait and then repatriated to the Philippines.

The DFA has dispatched a team from the Philippine embassy in Islamabad to coordinate with local authorities for the repatriation.

"We have several representatives in the Philippines who will ensure that the bodies are repatriated to the families," an official from AIM said.

"Each Filipino employee and his dependent family members will be eligible for payments under Defense Base Act Insurance and other policies that are in place," the company said. It added that it will process the insurance claims as soon as possible and submit these to the insurance company.

Meanwhile, the company official clarified that all 10 Filipino workers were already in Afghanistan when they started working for AIM.

DFA Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs Esteban Conejos Jr. said the focus of the Philippine government is to attend to immediate concerns which include the repatriation of the bodies and assistance that will be extended to the families.

"Our priority now is to work closely with the employer and the relevant authorities to identify the remains and cause their repatriation and ensure that all benefits due the workers are paid to their families. Thereafter, DFA will work with DoLE (Department of Labor and Employment) and POEA (Philippine Overseas Employment Administration) to find out how these workers ended up working in Afghanistan notwithstanding the deployment ban," Conejos said in the DFA statement.

FORMER Cebu City Councilor Jocelyn "Joy" Pesquera apologized yesterday to Mayor Tomas Osmeña and his wife Margot, and said she remains optimistic that her relations with the Osmeñas will get better even after the mayor's tirade against her.

The Department of Justice has ordered the withdrawal of the criminal case against Father Benedicto Ejares who was earlier indicted by the Cebu City Prosecutor's Office for other forms of child abuse after seven high school students of the Abellana National School complained that they were sexually harassed by the priest while hearing confessions three years ago.

Seven more cases were filed in court against Sulpicio Lines Inc. in relation to the June 21, 2008 sinking of the M/V Princess of the Stars, bringing to 65 the latest number of cases against the shipping company.

The city has agreed to dredge a creek that cuts through barangay Lorega- San Miguel to minimize flooding in the barangay but Vice Mayor Michael Rama said owners of a building that is undergoing construction should help implement the project.

Militants are set to hold simultaneous protest vigils in Calamba City in Laguna and in Dasmariñas, Cavite late afternoon Tuesday to kick off their protest march from the provinces to Batasang Pambansa, where the President will deliver what is expected to be her final State of the Nation address on Monday (July 27).

Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim allowed protesters to stage a series of marches in the city in the runup to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27, but strictly prohibited vandalism and declared Don Chino Roces (formerly Mendiola) bridge off-limits to vigils.

American-Filipino activist Melissa Reyes arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Monday night to pursue her complaint that she was abducted and tortured by military agents in Central Luzon while on an exposure tour last month.

The Supreme Court deferred the issuance of a temporary restraining order on the P4-billion initial payment that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) would give to a technology consortium it had tapped to automate the 2010 elections, a court spokesman said.

Priest-turned-Pampanga Gov. Eddie Panlilio on Tuesday declared "God is calling" him to seek the presidency next year, as he announced his intention to file his candidacy in late November even if it would mean leaving his religious vocation.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is keeping tabs on the health of former President Corazon Aquino and is urging Filipinos to continue praying for the ailing democracy icon"s recovery, a Palace official said on Tuesday.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives should support the Department of Education's policy of using the local language to teach the basics to young students by allocating a portion of their pork barrel for the development of training materials, according to Valenzuela Representative Magtanggol Gunigundo.

Peru's ex-president Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison Monday for corruption during his rule, court officials said, in the latest blow to the disgraced former leader already jailed on human rights abuses.

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff, given a 150-year prison sentence in June for running the biggest fraud in Wall Street history, spends seven hours a day doing light manual labor. According to the Post, Madoff was given a job in the prison's engraving section, where he makes desk and door nameplates from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. every day.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) gave beauty expert Dr. Vicki Belo and her co-accused in the video sex scandal until Friday to submit their opposition to Katrina Halili's bid to use as evidence a recording of the conversation of Belo, Dr. Hayden Kho and Lolit Solis.

Would-be suitors of siblings KC Concepcion, 24, Simone Francesca Emmanuelle, 8, and Mariel Daniella Sophia, 4, beware. As early as now, their parents - Sen. Francis Pangilinan and actress Sharon Cuneta - gave a stern warning to those who want to court their daughters in the future.

Heather Mills thinks anyone who has written lies about her should get cancer. The former model - ex-wife of Beatle Paul McCartney - believes in karma and is convinced people who have given her a hard time in the past will get their comeuppance by getting a life-threatening disease.

Three Filipino youth won the World Bank's 2009 International Essay Competition with their essay, video and photograph entries, besting more than 2,000 submissions from over 150 countries, 90 percent of which come from developing countries.

U.S. teens are getting sex education, but most are not learning about birth control from their parents, new government data showed on Thursday.

And rates of infection with sexually transmitted diseases reflect this -- the annual rate of AIDS diagnoses for boys aged 15 to 19 years has nearly doubled in the past 10 years, and rates of syphilis are also up.

For its report, the CDC compiled data from many different studies of hundreds of thousands of children and young adults aged 10 to 25. Some of the findings:

* Among 18 and 19-year-olds, 49.8 percent of girls and just 35 percent of boys had talked with a parent about methods of birth control.

* More than 80 percent of boys and girls said they had received formal instruction before age 18 on how to say no to sex.

* Nearly 70 percent of teen girls and 66 percent of boys had received instruction on methods of birth control.

* Thirty percent of girls aged 15 to 17 reported they had engaged in sex; this rose to 70.6 of girls aged 18 to 19.

* For boys, 31.6 of those aged 15 to 17 had ever had sex; 64.7 percent of those aged 18 to 19.

* Nearly 10 percent of young women aged 18 to 24 said their first intercourse was involuntary.

* Infections with the human immune deficiency virus that causes AIDS rose among boys aged 15 to 19 from 1.3 cases per 100,000 in 1997 to 2.5 cases in 2006.

* Syphilis rates for females aged 15 to 19 rose from 1.5 cases per 100,000 in 2004 to 2.2 cases per 100,000 in 2006 after having plunged between 1997 and 2005.

Cloudy skies loom on Wednesday and may block the view of a partial solar eclipse in the Philippines, state weather forecasters said Tuesday afternoon. People in the Philippines will get a chance to watch the partial eclipse between 8:26 a.m. and 11:10 a.m.